Within the Story...

"No story exists without its own past.
The past of a story is what enables us to understand it."
-- Peter Straub

 

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People are the sum total of their experiences - their history.
Each of us is unique in our childhoods, the events that happened to us growing up, and our experiences along the way. Those events color who we are and govern how we react to life -- our decisions, our conclusions, how we see ourselves and each other.

 

 

Places have histories, just like people.
Stories and their characters should have histories too.

 

A good author can tell a story. An unforgettable author weaves the History behind the story, the people, the places, the events..., etc. that caused that story to happen, giving that story and those characters an indelible place in the mind of the reader.

 

A story tells "what happened."
A story's History is "WHY."

 

Life doesn't happen in a Vacuum -- and neither should Fiction.